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I wanted to like Sri Lanka, in fact, I wanted to love Sri Lanka. The country has always conjured up images of great food, amazing beaches, stunning scenery and friendly people. So why did I leave after just 11 days of a month long trip, totally dejected and feeling let down by everything I saw?

Read on for the first of a 3 part trip report to see what was good, and what wasn’t.

Part 1 – The good

The wildlife in Sri Lanka, particularly the bird life, was fantastic. We were fortunate enough to see everything from blue whales and Asian elephants, to the small stuff such as green pigeon and more peafowl than you could shake a stick at.

Mirissa

Our first port of call was Mirissa, a small town that has become much busier in recent years because of whale watching. There is now a plethora of boats to choose from, we opted for one of the original operators to head out into the blue and search for one of the largest animals ever to have lived – the blue whale.

Our chosen operator, Raja and the whales, was a slick, well run operation with a good boat and helpful crew. Within an hour of leaving the harbour we found a pair of blue whales which we followed at a comfortable (for the whales) distance. They would surface for 2-3 minutes then dive for anywhere up to 10 minutes.

The spout (several metres high) of a blue whale

Tail of a blue whale,one of the largest animal to have ever lived

One unfortunate consequence of going with the best operator is that many of the others simply wait until they see Raja’s boat slow down then head over to see what we had found. Fortunately as we went out very early (6am) we had the whales to ourselves for the first half an hour after finding them. When we left, there were a half dozen other boats all jostling for position.

Accommodation in Mirissa was in the Bon Accord guest house – highly recommended. Keith and Prasad run a nice, very homely little place to stay. It was the most comfortable place we stayed in Sri Lanka. As ever in the tropics, there were plenty of additional visitors, such as this nice little lizard.

A nice little lizard found at our accommodation

Tissamaharama

Leaving Mirissa we headed along the busy roads to Tissamaharama (Tissa) which is where most people looking to visit Yala National Park tend to stay.

Our first park was actually Bundala National Park, which is famed for its bird life. The scenery was very nice, large wetlands, lakes and coastline, and the wildlife was prolific.

Peacock in Bundala National Park

View along the coastline of Bundala NP

Langur monkeys in Bundala National Park

The following day we made the 5am start for Yala National Park, in the hopes of finding a leopard. Torrential rain meant our chances of spotting a leopard were slim to none, so it was no surprise we didn’t see one. We were fortunate enough to see a bear, although it was head down and bum up as it tore apart an ants nest.

There were plenty of other animals to make up for it, and the scenery was again very nice.

Elephant rock, viewed from Yala NP

Asian elephant in Yala NP

Water buffalo having a splash

Tissa itself has several dagobas and stupas, plus an enormous number of fruit bats who take flight over the lake every evening.

Dagoba in Tissamaharama

Fruit bats take flight at sunset in Tissamaharama

Udawalawe

From Tissa, a short drive North brought us to Udawalawe, where we would be heading for the national park of the same name.

The town itself is not a place to linger, but the park was great. Whilst we didn’t see any herds of elephants we did see several individuals, as well a large number of eagles, and the nicest scenery out of all the places we visited on this trip.

A misty morning in Udawalawe National Park

Painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) takes flight in Udawalawe NP

Peacock displaying in Udawalawe NP

We stayed at LeGreen Udawalawe, a comfortable little guest house, where we had the best curry and rice of our entire trip. The food was proper home cooked and there were piles of it.

Nuwara Eliya

Leaving Udawalawe to head North into the hill country was the beginning of the end for this trip, it brought to a head many of the issues and annoyances we had encountered so far, as such that will be in part 2 of the trip report.

600mm is a long lens, once the preserve of super-telephotos that cost as much as a small car, the market sector for big zooms is filling up fast. The Tamron 150-600mm is joined by 2 different versions of the Sigma 150-600mm and the just released Nikon 200-500mm.

Having had a couple of outings with the Tamron, shooting it back to back with the Nikon 80-400mm AF-S I also own, I’d like to give my very quick initial impressions.

Good

Sharpness – it is almost distinguishable from the Nikon. Some sharpness drops off at 600mm, which is to be expected.

Build – everything feels nice and smooth, with no sloppiness.

Price – under £800 for a zoom which can reach 600mm, with more than reasonable image quality – that is a bargain

Decent lens foot – a very solidly built lens foot comes as standard, unlike the Nikon where you are forced to spend £150 on 3rd party accessory, as the Nikon item is woefully unfit for purpose

Weight – all that glass means it is a fair weight, and can give you arm ache if carried for a long period of time

Tamron 150-600 (bottom) vs Nikon 80-400 (top)

At the moment, I cannot really find anything too bad to say about it, and I have a sneaky feeling that it will replace the 80-400mm as my go-to long lens. I have a forthcoming trip to Sri Lanka, where amongst other things I will be looking for the elusive Leopard, and giving this lens a workout on both the wildlife, as well as the landscapes. I will then decide which lens is coming to South Africa for a month.

OK, let’s get this out of the way – I shoot Nikon, and I have very little (almost zero) knowledge of the Canon lens line up, and even less for other manufacturers, so my apologies to any non-Nikon shooters reading this, as it may well have zero relevance to you!

When I first started with a DSLR, it came with a kit lens. Being a D70, this kit lens was the Nikon 18-70mm.
When I upgraded to the D90 I had a 10-24mm, 50mm f/1.8 and the 70-300mm VR, all Nikon glass.

I decided then that I would stick with just Nikon (Well, Nikkor to be precise) glass for my Nikon camera – better quality, better resale value, guaranteed compatability etc.

This however didn’t last long, as a friend was selling a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.0 zoom, which I bought. I found it a great lens, very sharp and great in low light, with a great range for a travel lens. And it was cheap, oh so cheap! £120 used, versus around £1000 for the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8.
This was followed by a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom, which became my go-to wide angle lens for underwater photography. Nobody else at the time made a fisheye zoom.
Recently, I have bought the Tamron 150-600mm, with a view to replacing my Nikon 80-400mm (the new version). Nikon does not offer a zoom that gets out to 600mm, it’s less than half the price of the Nikon 80-400mm, and first impressions are that the lens is as sharp at 550mm as the Nikon is at 400mm.

As with everything in life, there are pros and cons with using an off brand lens, but for someone like myself who doesn’t earn all of their money from photography, good value is also important, and I feel that if you can look past their shortcomings, then third part lenses are a great option.

At the end of the day, for me, as long as I can get a nice sharp image then more pounds in my pocket means more trips to nice places. One of the below images was shot on a £2000 lens, the other on one that was £750 – can you really tell which was which?
PS – the reason for 2 bird photos? They usually need long focal lengths, and feather detail shows up a lack of sharpness quite well.

Dust spots are an unfortunate fact of life when shooting with a DSLR. Thankfully, Lightroom has tools that help to remove ‘dust bunnies’ from your images. However, dust is not the only enemy, especially for underwater photographers. We also have to contend with backscatter.

Original image, with backscatter

In the (rather ordinary) image of a nudibranch above, we can clearly see lots of spots and speckles. These spots are not dust spots, they are backscatter – the light from my strobes hitting some of the tiny particles suspended in the water, reflecting the light back into the camera

Hopefully, if you use Lightroom (and you really should be as it is a great all-in-one image editing and management package) then you already know about the spot healing brush (Shortcut Q)? As the name suggests, this is the tool to use if you are trying to clone out or heal parts of an image, maybe due to dust spots, backscatter, or even a piece of rubbish spoiling a pristine beach (although it would be better to actually remove the offending item before taking the photo)

Lightroom’s visualise spots option selected

Whilst working on this spotty image I remembered an additional option that is often overlooked when using the healing brush. Visualise spots (Shortcut A, when the clone brush is activated – or use the tickbox that is highlighted in red in the above image) presents a very basic black and white image, where dust spots show up as white specks on a black background, making them glaringly obvious.

As can be seen in the image above, finding the blemishes is much easier when the image is in such a contrasty black and white format.

Visualise spots set to maximum

The strength of this negative style image can be adjusted simply by moving the slider, highlighted in red in the above image. This helps to find the smaller specks that were not so obvious with a lower setting. It is down to you as to how far you go with spot removal.

I hope this post helps you with the thankless task that is dust removal.

Today, Wednesday 12th August, is World Elephant Day, and what better excuse to share a few images of these remarkable creatures?

In 2008 I spent 3 days working alongside retired working elephants with Elephantstay at the Royal Elephant Kraal & Village in Ayutthaya, Thailand.
This non-profit organisation is dedicated to conserving elephants, many of whom now find themselves unable to work due to the ban on logging. Many of these animals have worked for 20 or more years, now, unable to earn their keep, their retirement is financed through people staying in the village and having the opportunity to feed and look after these wonderful animals.

Bull Asian elephant getting a jetwash

With over 90 elephants, ranging in age from just a few months old to over 80, it is a busy place.

Baby Asian elephant dozing in the straw

I have also been fortunate enough to visit Southern Africa several times on safari, where I have experienced many encounters with elephants, ranging from single bulls through to herds of over 50 animals.

Seeing these stunning creatures in their natural habitat is unforgettable, and it saddens me that in this day and age such a beautiful creature is still so affected by poaching.